Category Archives: iOS – iPhone and/or iPad

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If you are using Parse for your back-end server in a Unity app, and you want to deploy the app to Android, you may run into some issues with the built-in Parse plugin. Specifically (at least in my case with Unity 4.6 and Android KitKat) the Parse query object doesn’t ever return a result.

I’m using github for a large project with multiple developers – there have been a few wrinkles using the github mac client so we switched to SourceTree – a free github client. We’re using it to implement gitflow – I’ve been very happy with it so far – below is our process…

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Before you start a new feature

make sure you have the latest copy of the dev branch (do a fetch on remote, then pull if dev branch shows any changes)

use gitflow command ‘new feature’ and name it

make your changes to code

stage files, then commit and push all changes to your feature branch

before finishing feature (merging with development) – use fetch to check status of development branch,

if there have been commits by other members of the team since you downloaded the development branch you will need to merge those changes to your feature branch before finishing the feature

The app uses the iOS contact list extensively to send ‘Thinking of You’ push and sms messages. Apple requires that you request permission from the user before you can access the address book, below is a code snippet showing how that is done…

I’ve been working on an AR (augmented reality) application for iOS and thought I would share some of the available software libraries and devices for iOS.

Hardware

Although an iPhone is not as ‘hands free’ as a dedicated AR device (Moverio, Vuzix, or the Meta SpaceGlasses) there are interesting hardware solutions to use your iPhone or Android smart phone as a AR client…

The Durovis Dive works with any Android or iOS smartphone featuring a gyroscope and an accelerometer and a display not larger than 5 inches. You just insert your smartphone, start the application and adjust the lenses to your eyes.

You can construct your own FOV2GO Model D Viewer – for the iPhone 4/4S, the Samsung Galaxy Note, or most Android smart phones – out of foam board and a couple of plastic lenses. Just download the instructions and the appropriate template.

This weekend I won 2nd place at the AppHack Austin with ShareMesh – an iOS based encrypted peer to peer messaging app that does not require an internet connection to operate. The app used the new iOS 7 features iBeacon and Multipeer Connectivity to handle discovery and communication between devices.

I had a great time and there were a lot of interesting projects and very talented people working on them (see a list at hackathon.io).

It is hosted at Capital Factory – a start-up incubator with 50,000 square feet of amazing work space.

I get about 24 hours to turn an idea into an app, some of the ones I’m looking at are…

ghost net – an encrypted peer to peer communications layer that lets users exchange messages/pictures between smartphones without using the internet or any other means detectable by totalitarian governments (Egypt, or NSA)

Arduino Bridge – software to link an iPhone as a sensor platform the the DIY chips and maker projects that use the Adruino

iDead – live action zombie game based on location of your iPhone

Crowd video processing – upload pictures of an event from all participants – stitch together into single browse-able panoramic / 3d scene

video recognition – use open source video processing software to train your iPhone to recognize objects that walk past the camera (trigger an alert when ‘lady in red’ walks by)

iPhone/robotic integration -use sphero or romo to link with an iPhone and do interesting things (room mapping, object manipulation, etc) and/or games